Updated on February 15th, 2021
I don’t usually have a hard time admitting that I don’t know the language. Italian? Nope. French? No. German? Nein. Russian? A few swear words courtesy of my best friend. But Spanish? I have this immense guilt about having to ask someone to switch to English. I think it’s mostly because I’ve had a lot of really great Spanish teachers in my life and I feel I owe it to them to be able to conduct basic conversations. Also in Costa Rica, everyone is so darn nice. I just wanted to be nice back, in their language!
For the first three days, I would panic everytime someone would ask me, ¿Cómo estás? Why? I have no idea. It was like my brain had fallen out of my head and the only Spanish left was “chicle en la
By day four, I had fallen into a rhythm. I managed to translate a little for Andy when the owner of our AirBnB (who spoke no English) took us to see a sloth in a nearby tree. Apparently “sleep”, “eat”, and “don’t touch it” are still part of my vocabulary. No surprises there.
On day five I managed to tell a grocery store cashier who apologized for her English that “usted Inglés es mejor que mi Espanol” (your English is better than my Spanish!). Maybe it is like riding a bike! A bike a crashed into a tree when later that day I answered the dreaded ¿Cómo estás? with a
The last day of our trip I managed to have an entire conversation about purchasing gasoline including “can we pay with a credit card?” and a few pleasantries without google translate or a panic attack. I like to believe the attendant was in shocked by my beautiful accent while my gringo husband said gra-C-ass. It’s unlikely but let me have my delusions of grandeur.
All of this has brought to my attention just how much I really need to work on my language skills. I’m adding “really learn Spanish” to my 2019 goal list. Dear Spanish speaking world: I’m trying, and I’m sorry for my bad Spanish.
Does anyone have any suggestions for programs or apps that could help improve my Spanish?